His Healing Touch (25 page)

“You really should be more careful, Adam.”

She was right. He should’ve been more cautious, especially that night.

As though he’d rewound the tape, she went back to touching his face, teasing him because his hair was curling over his ears, chiding him for not taking better care of himself. “…now, if you were a girl,” she was saying, “it wouldn’t be so bad, because you could cover those dark circles with makeup. But—”

“Kasey?”

Smiling tenderly, she looked into his face. “Hmm?”

Adam pointed to his lips.

Giggling, she nodded, and kissed him.

Then, quick as a snap, she got to her feet. “I’m baking a ham and all the trimmings for Christmas dinner. Invited Wade and Anna and her brood, too.”

That surprised him, and though he didn’t say so, it must have showed on his face, because Kasey shrugged. “Makes perfect sense, if you ask me, since you’re going to be spending so much more time around my house now.”

Before he had a chance to respond, Kasey grabbed his hand. “You really oughta put something on that,” she said, “because I love you, too, and I’d hate to see an infection spoil your Christmas.”

He started to say that the wounds were well past infection stage, when she kissed his knuckles.

“…’cause even though I’m fairly fanatical about housekeeping, I hafta admit, I’ve never even thought about cleaning the inside of my mailbox….”

The breath caught in his throat as awareness dawned; she knew about the money deliveries, too!

Standing on tiptoe, she pressed a kiss to his chin. “From here on out, mister,” she said, “no secrets. Got it?”

He could almost hear his guilty heart turning toward her
loving forgiveness. She’d dispensed with the expected “we have plenty of time to work out the details” speech, preferring, instead, to
show
him what their future would be like. Life with Kasey would be a lot of things, he realized, but boring wouldn’t be one of them!

Pulling her closer, he whispered, “Got it.”

“You bet you do,” she said meaningfully. “You bet you do!”